Clint Eastwood. The man with the ever-brusque facial expression. Western hero turned cop hero turned cineaste with an output that rivals Woody Allen: in quantity and quality. I mean terrible. Wait, I don’t mean terrible. I mean “not for me”. His directorial efforts are not for me. You see, Eastwood seems to make movies that fit his own demographic: seniors that need everything spelled out for them.
Clint isn’t one for subtlety or ambiguity: his characters are often expressing exactly how they are feeling; and if they don’t express it, then someone else will put the words in their mouth. He wants the viewer to feel unburdened by things like subtext and metaphors. He wants you to “be on the same page”. A few examples: Sully, the discouraged aircraft pilot simulator; Mystic River, the child sex trauma victim simulator; and Invictus, the Nelson Mandela fanclub simulator. I use the word “simulator” because Clint’s movies are deliberately-paced for maximum pragmatism. You start to “feel” for Sully’s social isolation; for Dave Boyle’s self-inflicted alienation; for how stoked you’d be to get the chance to meet Nelson Mandela.
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